Raising Hairless Rats

                                      Young Hairless Rat

This hairless rat is about two months old. We think they are ugly-cute with
their wrinkly skin. Hairlessness seems to be a genetic anomaly and the rats
we have are predisposed to this trait. We started with a hairless female and
a hairy silver-grey (blue) male rat. The eleven or so "kittens" were all
dark black and furry. We bred the males and females of this group and ended
up with various colors and markings of furred and hairless rats. We had
black, faun, and grey solid colored rats, black hooded and grey (blue)
hooded rats, and hairless rats with various markings. A hairless rat can be
a hooded rat with dark colored skin around its head and shoulders, and pink
skin everywhere else, including the tail.
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Adult Hairless Rat

The hairless rats are quite intelligent, interesting, and they are good
parents. They feel like warm velvet and they are not completely without
hair. The hairless rats in a litter tend to be the smallest of the litter
and they have curly whiskers. We feed the rats fruits, vegetables, a grain
mix, and low calorie dry dog food. The students enjoy having the rats run
free on their long lab tables. Many of the rats are used to feed the Savanna
Monitor, the Albino Black Rat Snakes, the Ball Python, and the Boa. The
Savanna Monitor tends to wolf the younger rats down while they are still
alive.
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                                                   Zac Squeezes Hairless Rat

Zac Baker is a 1995/1996 eighth grade student at Kensington Academy. He is
squeezing the stuffing out of the rat shown here in the picture.

No, he is not really squeezing the rat although it might look like he is and
it might look like the rat is about to give Zac a nice bite on the hand. Zac
is really a very good rat handler and the rat did not bite him.

We do not execute Tesla Coil experiments on the rats although students have
suggested this very type of experiment on numerous occasions.
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